The other works that were questioned were Rio Cortez’s “The ABCs of Black History”, George Ancona’s “Cuban Kids”, Tony Medina’s “Love to Langston” and Kieran Walsh’s “Countries in the News: Cuba”. Reasons cited for opposing the other works include “indoctrination” and critical race theory, a graduate academic framework for understanding racism in the United States that focuses primarily on institutions and systems.

A committee of school representatives, including teachers, administrators, a guidance counselor, and a library media specialist, decided that “Countries in the News: Cuba” could stay on the shelves. The other titles, such as Mrs. Gorman’s poem, moved to middle school student shelves.

On Wednesday morning, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava invited Ms. Gorman to do a reading of the poem in the county.

“Her poem inspired our youth to become active participants in her government and help shape the future,” Ms Levine Cava, a Democrat, said on Twitter.

Florida has become the center of a rapidly escalating effort to ban books from schools across the United States. Last year, the state enacted three laws that target, at least in part, reading or educational materials.

PEN America, a free speech organization, and Penguin Random House, the nation’s largest book publisher, filed a federal lawsuit this month accusing the Escambia County School District in Florida of violating the First Amendment by removing or restricting certain types of books in their libraries.

Nationally, efforts to ban books are increasingly being driven by elected officials or activist groups, according to a PEN report published in April. The report found that of the nearly 1,500 book removals it tracked in the last six months of 2022, 74 percent were related to organized efforts by activist and political groups, or to new laws that determine which books can be in schools. .